* Prelude *
Underworld - Few Years Ago
He heard, as he backed into the rough cement wall, the shirt tear and he felt the loose piece of material in his free hand. The Trader’s midsection was now completely exposed. Wildly ramming the glistening knife toward the Trader’s body he came dangerously close to piercing the skin.
Finally, he made contact! He continued to forcefully jab the sharp, pointed, metal piece into the milky colored flesh, over and over. He didn’t see the red elixir leak from the standing body as he expected.
He was hoping to see the cherry-colored liquid gush out of the pale flesh onto the dirty concrete floor, but there wasn’t even a sign of a wound or a cut. In fact, the knife was cleaner and shinier than it had been when he first started out that night.
“You ain’t takin’ me!” he yelled. “Not if I can help it! I’ve almost waited out the Magic Five. I’ll be damned if I’m goin’ out like this!” he continued as he saw the gripping hands inching closer and closer to his neck. He could feel the heat emanating from the palms as they reached out for him.
All his eyes could focus on were the parting fingers as they readied themselves to clutch his life-giving jugular and yank it out of his throat- or so he thought.
“You son-of-a-bitch Traders think you own the world! All I did was gun down some scum sucker and put him out of his own misery. It wasn’t like he was someone important or special. Hell, I only got twenty bucks off him. Here! You can have it back!” he screamed as he reached both of his hands into his pockets and pulled out a twenty- dollar bill in one hand and a small calibre pistol in the other.
Bang! Crack! Blam! The sound of the gunfire echoed through the hollow, abandoned building. The Trader flew backwards and slammed against the wall.
“That’ll teach you to mess with me- y-y-you suckwad! I’ve only gotta couple of hours left and my five days are up. There ain’t ‘thing one’ you can do about it! I might just go out and blow someone else away just because you pissed me off,” he snickered as he felt around the blackened room for the nearest exit.
It was much too dark to see if he had really shot the Trader. He hadn’t heard any signs of life coming from the direction where he wildly scattered his bullets. He was pretty sure the Trader was lying dead or at least seriously wounded in a heap on the floor!
Slowly feeling his way along the wall with his hands, like a blind man uses his cane, he found a window and quickly climbed out.
“I better get my ass outta here- and quick. Who knows how many more of those bastard Traders might be around,” he thought as he hit the ground with a hard thud! He rolled over and rubbed his now throbbing ankle. It was surprising not to have hit the ground immediately after thrusting his body out the window.
Little droplets of blood oozed from several cuts on his arms. He hadn’t quite cleared the jagged edges of the broken glass when he jumped feet first out the open portal to freedom.
The Trader had been chasing him so long and so fast he hadn’t realized he was all the way up on the second story when he lunged out the window and started his trek to
safety.
He only had to wait out two more hours. Two short hours. One hundred and
twenty minutes and his life would be his again. He would no longer be a prisoner of time. “The first thing I’m gonna to do is knock over some liquor store and use the
dough to buy some really good stuff and trip out for a while,” he thought as he hoisted his body and began sprinting. The gold medallion necklace around his neck kept crashing into his already constricted windpipe. He didn’t dare take it off though, for it was the only relic he had to fuse the past, present, and future together. He knew it would soon be passed on, as the reign of power in the black zone was about to change hands from father to son.
Running as fast as he could on a mangled ankle he made his way down a darkened alley and into another dilapidated building. The crumbling structure was only a couple of windstorms away from falling completely apart.
The light of the moon wasn’t quite bright enough to illuminate the building. So, again he used his hands to feel his way down to the basement of the broken down structure.
“Hot Damn! I’m going to make it,” he mouthed as he let his breath out and gave a little relieved sigh.
After piling up all of the broken down debris he could manage to find in the hot, damp basement, he crawled behind the makeshift force field and crouched in the corner.
“No one will ever find me here,” he said out loud, feeling an over-sized rat scamper across his feet.
Relaxing a bit and feeling his body loosening from the tension he felt only moments ago after the close call of cat and mouse with the Trader, he pulled out a cigarette and lit a match, all in a one-handed acrobatic move. Just as he was touching the hot flame to the end of the tobacco stick he caught a quick glimpse of something moving straight toward him at a highly accelerated rate. It wasn’t anything recognizable. It was like a warm, white, glow of light rapidly streaming directly at him!
The cigarette fell out of his mouth and the match dropped to the floor. Before he could get up from his crouching position he felt two soft hands on his forehead. He could see the Trader he thought he had blown away only moments ago standing completely unharmed right in front of his face.
“You, shit! I thought I killed you!” he screamed as he lashed out ferociously with his fists, making one last attempt at freedom!
He savagely kicked at the Trader. He did everything he could possibly think of to continue his life on earth. All of the fighting was to no avail. The Trader had the extermination marked and wasn’t about to let the thug go.
“I’m going to trade your life for the one you took and bring some happiness and joy back into the world,” the Trader softly whispered into his face.
“I ain’t goin’ without a fi…!” were the last words he uttered before he disappeared into oblivion! He just evaporated, like an object turns to dust after being dowsed in liquid nitrogen and then dropped to the ground. Never to be seen or heard from again. The only one remaining piece that reflected his existence here on earth was the gold medallion necklace which was now teetering face down, as it prepared to make its resting place among the other trash and garbage strewn around the soiled, cement floor.
